Group Members

Jihye Yang

Jihye has an interest in dopamine dynamics while association and dissociation occur in the brain. Through studying correlations between neural activity and behavior, she pursues a feasible method to help people who suffer from memories with unpleasant emotions evoked, such as PTSD. Since she received her bachelor’s degree in Molecular Bioscience, she ideally wishes to integrate her knowledge of molecular neuroscience with circuitry or behavioral level in a computational way. This lab makes Yang fascinated with state-of-the-art techniques for analyzing dopamine activities corresponding to behaviors - which deepens her understanding of various dopamine responses involved in Reward Prediction Errors (RPEs) and Punishment Prediction Errors (PPEs).
email: sophia.yang@g.skku.edu

Jihwan Kim

Jihwan is interested in RL and decision-making, specifically how different types of cost is integrated in learning agent’s brain. In his experience at cognitive neuroscience laboratory followed by his previous experience in behavioral research on rats, he has developed a keen interest in studying neural mechanisms of reinforcement learning and decision-making process in rodents. He aims to disentangle how different types of costs affect reward-processing circuit via behavioral and neural quantification of cost-benefit decision making model. Ultimately, his goal is to apply his findings during his time in NeuRLab further in both clinical and scientific research regarding different neuropsychiatric diseases characterized with reward-processing deficit. He hopes that such approach can also be in harmony with computational modeling which can be applied and generalized across different field of industries.
email: koei3307@gmail.com

Ben Dougen

Ben received his bachelor’s in Neuroscience and master’s in Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities working with the Carroll and Kerlin labs respectively. His interest is in reward circuitry as it pertains to addiction and discovery of new treatments for addiction pathology. His goal is to combine classical behavioral methods with new technologies in neuroimaging to better understand the molecular and cellular underpinnings that give rise to the complex behaviors exhibited during addiction.
email: bdougen@gmail.com

Yelda Asgari

Yelda has received her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Ankara University Turkiye. Yelda is interested in mental disorders and dopamine mechanisms linked with them. Currently, there is still so much unknown and so many things to discover about mental disorders. Since she was interested in biomaterials during bachelor’s degree by joining NeuRLab Yelda wishes to develop more effective treatments for mental disorders such as depression and schizophrenia.
email: yeldasgari@g.skku.edu

Hoyeon Jang

Hoyeon received his bachelors degree at Hanyang University ERICA campus with a major in Computer Science. He is interested in the intersection of reinforcement learning models and brain inspired artifical intelligence. To that end, his goal is to pursue study of neural signals (especially reward) in the brain via computer model based approaches.
email: hoyeon912@g.skku.edu

Seungyub Lee

Seungyub is majoring in Global Biomedical Engineering at SKKU. He is interested in interpreting various phenomena such as learning through imagination and dreams through the overall mechanism of brain function. Recently, He is also interested in learning during unconsciousness, and he try to observe the results using optogenetics and fMRI.
email: yubkee@g.skku.edu

• URP, 2021 summer; BS/MS program

Jongwon Yun

Jongwon is majoring in Global Biomedical Engineering at SKKU. He joined this lab since he was fascinated by Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). He wants to study how the neural signals are processed and applied to more advanced ANN models. In line with that, he is currently working on collecting neural data using Neuropixels and analyzing the neural data.
email: tiramica@g.skku.edu

• URP, 2021 winter; BS/MS program

Mijoo Park

Mijoo is majoring in Biomedical Engineering at SKKU. She is widely interested in emotional feedbacks made from stimuli and neural mechanims of decision making in interaction with outside-world. She wishes to explore and learn how brain works with different steps happening inside. By studying in this lab, she is expecting to narrow her interest through chances.
email: miju0218@g.skku.edu

• URP, 2021 winter; BS/MS program

Rin Wang

Rin is majoring in Psychology at SKKU. She is primarily interested in mental disorders they impact social interactions. While studying in the NeuRLab, she is focused on discovering the relationship between empathy and the reward system. Additionally, she aims to produce research that can aid in reducing prejudice against mental disorders and foster a healthy society where everyone’s mental health can flourish.
email: wang215@g.skku.edu

• 2022, Co-Deep Learning (Gtopia)

Jaebin Yoon

Jaebin is majoring in Biological Science at SKKU. Broadly, he is interested in how learning in the brain modulates its circuitry and ultimately its behavioral changes. In joining the NeuRLab, Jaebin hopes to narrow his focus and refine his research topic.
email: gkwl622@g.skku.edu

Dea Nathania Hendryanti

Thania received her B.S degree and awarded as Best Graduate Student in Food Technology major from Soegijapranata Catholic University (SCU), Indonesia. Subsequently, she completed her M.S. degree at Ewha Womans University, South Korea where she focused on food functionality, metabolic pathways and non-communicable diseases using animal models. From 2015-2023, she held a position as an assistant professor of Nutrition and Functional Food at SCU – Indonesia. By joining NeuRLab and pursuing her Ph.D degree, she wishes to establish a bridge between nutritional science and neuroscience research. Her research is currently focused on the nature of dopamine subsystems and internal states in driving nutrient homeostasis.
email: deanathania17@gmail.com

• google scholar

Nawoon Kwon

Nawoon is majoring in Global Biomedical Engineering at SKKU. She is interested in how different stimuli effect different neural mechanisms. By joining this lab, she wishes to explore the way visual environmental inputs effect the neural decision making mechanism. She also hopes to explore various neural activities and narrow her interest in studying.

• ExCool, 2022; URP, 2022 winter

Hyein Kim

Hyein is majoring in Global Biomedical Engineering at SKKU. She is interested in reinforcement learning and its applications in the field of neuroscience. By joining the NeuRLab, she aims to better understand and explain the performance and processes of the brain by comparing those of an AI agent. Additionally, she hopes to explore the field further by participating in a variety projects.

JeongYeon Ryu

Jeongyeon is majoring in Psychology at the University of Utah. She is interested in studying the correlations between brain activity and cognitive ability to identify individuals who are at risk of mental illness based on certain characteristics of their brains. At the NeuRLab, she hopes to learn and contribute to all aspects of research, including conducting experiments, analyzing data, and interpreting fMRI results.

• University of Utah, 2024

Wonjun Kim

Wonjun is majoring in Intergrative Biotechnology at SKKU. He is interested in how addiction works and affects the body and brain. His ultimate goal is to better understand how cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, actions, etc. cause addiction and how to treat it. At the NeuRLab, he wishes to learn more about other brain functions and improve his ability in deep-learning/brain science.

• URP, 2022 1st semester

Researchers

Hogyu Choi

• Hogyu Choi was a researcher, 2021-2022. He was initially interested in depression but then switched to work on aversive learning. He is currently in Ph.D. program at UC Riverside.
• He has majored in Biology(neuroscience) at Penn State. He has completed his master’s degree in Molecular Biology at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is interested in emotions. Currently, there are no exact biological methods nor any basic neuroscience principles to distinguish emotional activities or measure them. The only way we can identify a person’s emotions are through, psychological questionnaires or facial expressions. His goal is to measure and distinguish emotions using neuroscience techniques by combining computer science, electrophysiology, and molecular biology.

Undergraduate research assistants

• Gwang Je Ahn was in Advanced Materials Science and Engineering at SKKU (2021). He was the first SKKU student who bravely contacted HyungGoo when the lab was not open. He wanted to explore different fields. He contributed to the initial setups of the lab.

• Minsun Seong, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021).

• Taeyeon Weon, Biological Science at Korea University (2021).

• Jiwon Bu, Biological Sciences at Imperial College London (2021). She started by asking ‘What is Linux? What is Python?’. A couple of months later, she set up the first Deeplabcut in the lab. Currently, she is in Cantas Alev’s lab at Kyoto University studying developmental biology.

• Wooyoung Cho, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021).

• Chanho Jang, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021).

• Dongmin Sa, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021).

• Hyeongdo Jeon, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021).

• Hyeyoon Jung, Biology and Psychology at Korea University (2021).

• Jaecheol Park, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021). He wrote an undergraduate thesis entitled “Comparison of neural activity between biological and recurrent neural network”.

• Lumi Lee, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021 - 2022, URP).

• Sohee Moon, Integrative Biotechnology at SKKU (2022, URP).

• Yejin Lee, Integrative Biotechnology at SKKU (2022, URP).

• Seongha Choi, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022, ExCool).

• Hyujun Gu, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022, ExCool).

• Yunah Lee, Integrative Biotechnology at SKKU (2022, URP).

• Siyoung Choi, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2021-2).

• GunWoo Kim, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022, Co-Deep Learning (Gtopia)).

• JeonSeok Baek, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022, Co-Deep Learning (Gtopia)).

• Jinhwan Jeong, Integrative Biotechnology at SKKU (2022, URP).

• Yewon Cho, Integrative Biotechnology at SKKU (2022, URP).

• Yeowon Kim, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022-2023, URP).

• Hyunsu Kim, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022-2023).

• Jongheon Kim, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2022-2023, URP).

• Sohyun Park, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2023, ExCool).

• Seonju Kim, Biomedical Engineering at SKKU (2023, ExCool).

• Yubin Park, Medicine at Wonkwang University (Jan-Feb, 2024).